Settlin' Into Summer

Ahhhh.

That's the sigh of the severely contented, breathed forth from a corner of the (cool) darkened basement, a nearly empty Detroit Dwarf at my right hand, and the quiet hissing of the baby monitor letting me know that The Rozzle is away in la-la land. Guess that means summer's here!

Seriously: I know summer doesn't start officially - calendrically! - for nearly another month. But, I've been on a school schedule for as long as…well, let's just say "forever" and have done with it, yes? So, for me, summer is a 16-week season that lasts from roughly the second week of May until the last week of August. And, after a bout of some typical coolish, rainy weather, we here in the middle of the L.P. have been blasted with a (frankly quite welcome) heat wave. It finally feels like summer, with the high humidity and ominously-droning Junebugs, and I can pretty much have a beer any ol' damn time I feel like it. Beer! Breakfast of champions. Beer! It's what's for dinner.

(Just heard a TAL podcast about the #1 party school, and all the kids who flock to Natural Light for it's cheapness…all the while admitting that it tastes horrible. Shit, I'm glad I'm past that age! I want to pay ten or twelve bucks for a single six-pack…and have each beer be akin to nectar of the gods!)

Other good things of this early summer:

1) Had a wonderful, LONG fucking overdue visit from Stephanie (formerly of Sweet Water Journal, and where tha' fuck ARE you with that, what?) who blew into town for good wine and good conversation and…oh yeah! A surprise shower for a mutual friend who became surprise preggers. Whoops. God DAMN those percentages printed on the box! Lull ya into a false sense of security every damn time… Anyway, loved having her here, wish to holy hell she and hubby would just move BACK to Michigan and have done with the fuckin' prairie, already!

2) Roz has been just phenomenally sweet and (more or less) agreeable lately. I think she likes having us both home, to serve at her beck and call. She has shown a newfound fearlessness that apparently comes from being (almost) 3, which I like a lot, the most obvious manifestation of which was a recent camel ride she undertook with Papa at the zoo a few weeks back.

3) Miss Tessmacher recently accepted a 6-week (!!) summer teaching position at Unnamed But Totally Obvious Northern Music Camp, and we're working out the deets as to how that'll affect Rozzle care, what with MY 3-week summer class overlapping her absence. We'll work it out…which is, I guess, what working parents do all the time, right?

4) I've been in a blissful news-free zone since school got out, which means I've been avoiding politics as well. That's good, because I can really get my underwear in a bunch about that stuff. Better to not give a shit, right? RIGHT?!? (Oil spill? WHAT oil spill???)

I had more I thought I'd write, but my beer is empty and I stink from my recent walk, so it's nigh into the shower with me. Be well, y'all, and go to Kiss Online to check for summer tour dates near you! Rock on.